Good news for horses: a bipartisan group of more than 100 members of Congress, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, joined together as original cosponsors of the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act introduced last night in the U.S. House. Led by Reps. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., and Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., who are both veterinarians and co-chairs of the House Veterinary Medicine Caucus, along with the leadership team of Reps. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., David Jolly, R-Fla., and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., this crucial legislation, H.R. 3268, aims to stop the intentional torture of Tennessee walking horses and related breeds just for ribbons and prizes.

Horse. Image courtesy Lance Murphey for The HSUS/Animals & Politics.

The Senate version of the PAST Act was introduced earlier this year by Sens. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Mark Warner, D-Va., and S. 1121 now has 43 cosponsors (nearly half the Senate) and continues to build momentum.

In 1970, Congress passed the Horse Protection Act (HPA) to stop “soring”—a barbaric practice in which unscrupulous trainers injure the horses’ hooves and legs to induce an unnatural, high-stepping gait prized in some show rings. In some cases the trainers apply caustic chemicals, including diesel fuel and mustard oil, and cook it into the horses’ flesh by wrapping their legs in plastic, jam painful objects into their tender hooves, and use a host of other gruesome techniques to make it hurt for the horses to step down.

However, the law is weak, and soring remains widespread in a small segment (an estimated 10 percent) of the Tennessee walking horse industry. These trainers have soring down to a science, and they continue to devise new ways to inflict pain on their victims while concealing evidence of the cheating and cruelty—all to produce the artificial “Big Lick” gait and gain unfair advantage at horse competitions.

After decades of abuse, it’s high time that Congress takes action. The PAST Act will do what’s needed—amend the existing law to end the corrupt system of industry self-policing, ban the use of devices implicated in the practice of soring such as chains that strike against horses’ sore legs and heighten the pain, strengthen penalties, hold all those involved accountable, and make the act of soring a horse illegal.continue reading…

If you live in one of five states with no laws preventing the private possession of dangerous wild animals, there’s no telling what kind of safety threats are looming in your own neighborhood.

Captive wild and exotic animals have unique and extremely complex needs that are difficult, if not impossible, for individuals to provide. Pictured above, an African lion in the wild. Photo by Vanessa Mignon.

Dozens of Milwaukee residents reported seeing a lion running loose, spurring a media frenzy this week. One blurry image captured on video in a resident’s backyard suggests this could be a young male or adult female African lion. People are so fearful and on edge that one man mistakenly shot and injured a pit bull dog, thinking it was the lion.

It shouldn’t take a tragedy before Wisconsin, and the other remaining holdout states of Alabama, Nevada, North Carolina, and South Carolina, enact common-sense laws to prevent reckless people from putting entire communities at risk by keeping dangerous wild and exotic pets. continue reading…

— Our thanks to World Animal Protection for permission to republish this article, which originally appeared on their site on July 7, 2015.

With rabies cases on the rise in Bali, it has been reported that local communities and the provincial government have yet again resorted to culling stray dogs to control rabies.

Dog. Image courtesy World Animal Protection.

This is a misguided effort and the Balinese Government is undermining the highly successful vaccination programme it previously invested in. Culling dogs is both cruel and pointless, as dog numbers recover quickly. Ultimately, killing dogs has no effect on eliminating rabies or tackling the issue of stray dogs.

Combining responsible pet ownership and humane population practices are just two effective ways to approach the situation. With three decades of experience in advising governments on the issue, we have reached out to the Balinese Government to collaborate on a solution, but have yet to receive a response. We strongly urge them to immediately stop culling stray dogs and to seek a more humane course of action as an alternative. continue reading…

When tourists come to Puerto Rico, they find a tropical place full of natural wonders and beauty—and it is. But not for the dogs. Playa Lucia, Puerto Rico, in the southeast, is nicknamed “Dead Dog Beach.” Both living and dead animals are routinely disposed of there.

Guajataca, rescued May 2015, with a broken femur, mange, and an infection. Image courtesy Save a Sato.

Puerto Rico is plagued by poverty. And this summer the United States’ commonwealth is also suffering from a horrific drought, exacerbated by a heat wave and no rain. Puerto Rico’s current drought is worse than California’s. The government has instituted water rationing, and Save a Sato, a nonprofit animal rescue based in San Juan that relies entirely on donations, has to buy water for their many rescued cats and dogs. Summer is bad, Sidnia Delgado, partner shelter coordinator with Save a Sato, explains, because “most of our animals travel in cargo. The airlines do not permit live cargo if temperatures exceed 85 degrees. Unfortunately, during the summer months we are at a standstill.”

The animals can’t get out, but the tourists can still get in.

Tourism makes up a significant part of Puerto Rico’s economy. And tourists visiting the temperate, bustling streets of San Juan are often charmed by the satos (a slang term for a street dog). Mentions of them appear in dozens of threads on the travel site TripAdvisor. Delgado confirms that tourists are often horrified when they see the satos in the streets. “Sometimes they will really bond with a dog, and they want to take it back with them. That’s where we come in.”

Tourists can even take pictures of the dog they want to adopt, and volunteers from Save a Sato will try to track it down for them. Delgado continued, “[Tourists] can take the dog to our vet, where he will be evaluated. If he’s in good health, he will be given all of his shots and a travel certificate. By this time most tourists have returned to the mainland, so we arrange for the dog to travel to them. If the dog is healthy, the whole process takes about a week.” Raquel Malaret, secretary of Save a Sato, estimates that it costs an average of $500 to prepare an animal to be sent to the continental United States, between food, medical care, vaccines, and the cost of travel itself. Some animals, like Guajataca, pictured above, cost more, because of the extent of their injuries. Guajataca’s veterinary bills totaled more than $700.

Longtime wildlife advocate Congressman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., led a briefing today to expose the annual, irresponsible killing of millions of wild animals on behalf of a few special interests.

Songbird–John Harrison/courtesy The HSUS.

The USDA’s century-old “Wildlife Services” program is a little known, taxpayer-funded effort to deal with wildlife conflicts, but the agency principally focuses on the outdated and inefficient model of lethal control.

And that killing routinely utilizes shockingly inhumane and indiscriminate methods, such as toxic poisons, steel-jawed leghold traps, and aerial gunning.

In Fiscal Year 2014 alone, Wildlife Services spent more than $127 million—more than half of it from federal, state, and local taxes—to kill more than 2.7 million animals, including some endangered species and family pets.

These animals were poisoned, gassed, shot from the ground and from aircraft, and killed in painful traps and snares to benefit clients like industrial timber operators, commercial fish farmers, and private ranchers grazing their livestock on public lands. continue reading…

"Service Animal" Scammers (New Yorker): An increasing number of your neighbors have been keeping company with their pets in human-only establishments simply by claiming that the creatures are their licensed companion animals and are necessary to their mental well-being.